We visited the Gower Inn for our final Thursday evening dance tour of the year. We started at 7pm due to the evenings now getting darker a lot earlier. We did two sets of dances which saw us conclude things at 8:45pm when it was quite dark. Dances we did were Postman's Knock, Step & Fetch Her, British Grenadiers, Sheriff's Ride, Curly Boar, Banbury Bill, Constant Billy, Vandalls of Hammerwich, Banks of the Dee, and BGG. All of these dances were executed with reasonably good lines and with tidy heys. It was good to see Ken Bond come along to watch us. Ken lives nearby but hasn’t been able to dance with us this year, although he did join us in our final dance of Bonnie Green Garters.
So, that’s it for another year, as we shall be practicing indoors from now on, although we still have a few weekend gigs to go to in the coming months.

We enjoyed a slightly cooler evening out, dancing by Prezzo at the Mumbles Piazza. There was a good crowd of people around, no doubt due to the break in the weather that had seen, earlier in the day and forecast for later on, thunderstorms and rain. We were joined by Andy Baker who brought along his concertina to play with the Band, plus Zep turned up in mufti to watch us. Good to see you guys!

We gave a good display of two dance sets which included Grenadiers, Curly Boar, Postman's Knock, Speed the Plough, Balance the Straw, Riggs of Doom, Banks of the Lea, Y Gaseg Eira, Vandals and Bonny Green before darkness at 8:30pm signalled an end to our evening. The nights are drawing in and next week's Gower Inn gig will be our last of the season. Sad!
​Pics by Paul & Erin.

We paid a visit to The Wilkie, situated in northern Swansea in between Clase & Llangyfelach, and just as we arrived it started raining! Not that we’re complaining mind, as the countryside really needs dampening down after all of the 'wildfires'.

A quick visit to the bar revealed Pedigree was on tap, although the Gower Gold and London Pride had sadly just run out. Our number of dancers was reduced by people being on holiday and injury, so, out of necessity we did a reduced dance set for the seven dancers available, and kicked off with Postman’s Knock which we did for some of the diners who left their tables to watch us. Riggs of Doom, Curly Boar and Maid of the Mill followed with Alex H calling the latter but actually dancing Highland Mary! Fortunately, recovery was quick and no one witnessed the error.
​
We took a short break but then another rain shower and encroaching darkness of dusk sent us scurrying into the pub where we had a good social natter about anything & everything.
So a pleasant evening out at a good venue, shortened by rain.
Pics by Paul.

Following the excitement of the partial eclipse on Wednesday, we thought we’d come back to Earth with some dancing! We performed for 45 mins on Dylan Thomas Square by the Pumphouse before moving a short distance to The Queen’s Hotel. Both areas were great for dancing and due to a few dancers being absent due to injury and vacations, we were limited to doing Cotswold dances for six! A film maker called Ben Reed took some photos of us and is hopefully going to include us in a forthcoming film.
Pics by Paul & Claire.

The side was invited by Cardiff Morris to attend the All Wales Morris weekend which was being hosted in Cardiff City Centre and in Cardiff Bay. Carreg Las, Clerical Error, Cobblers Awl as well as Cardiff Morris were also dancing there. Sadly, I was unable to attend this event as I was at a wedding in Dublin, and no one so far, has written up what happened, but Claire took the following photographs of the side dancing throughout the day. Thanks Claire!

​Our first performance of the evening was at The Angel at Kenfig. Again the weather was kind to us, warm but not too hot as it has been of late. We danced Postman’s Knock and Riggs of Doom to a rather small audience but were pleased to be asked to teach Brighton Camp to three young ladies. They were relatives of Kevin, our melodeon player, keen to join in and they gave a very good show, earning themselves a Curly Boar badge, the dance with which we finished the spot.
Moving all the way down the road to The Prince of Wales we were welcomed by a larger audience for us to dance for. So after pints were bought we moved quickly into our first dance Beaux of London City (Badby). Some watchers were keen to join in, so with the sun setting fast giving a beautiful pink sky as a backdrop we demonstrated Lads a Bunchum and then offered some audience participation. Upton Stick Dance and Vandals were then done, followed by our farewell dance Bonny Green Garters. With daylight failing fast we retired to the bar where Sian played a variety of fiddle music including The Hornpipe and was joined by Roger on accordion for a few Morris tunes.
Write up by Alison Bayliss

We started  with about a dozen members, dancers and musicians, at the Reverend James, performing five or six dances in the car park to an audience of five or six people. And drinking Reverend James beer.
 
On to the Boat Club. The setting was great, sunset over the estuary. Unfortunately, there was loud canned music from the juke box. We were told that people had fed money into it, and it was not possible to turn it off without them losing their money. There was quite a large audience there, many keen to see us perform. Three quarters of an hour later, at ~9pm, the canned music still continued. We gave up and left, to the disappointment of both ourselves and many of the audience.
Write up by Keith, photos by Claire.

We were invited to dance at the Friends of Dunvant Park Fun Day on Saturday. It’s a small park that seems to be situated more in Killay than Dunvant. We danced near the basketball court, doing two dance sets in the sunshine which was cooler than the scorching weather we’ve recently had.
It was good to see Geoff’s family look us up as several of his grand children, amongst others, duly volunteered to dance when we did Lads a Bunchum! Someone from F.O.D.P. Video’d us dancing Postman’s Knock and Riggs of Doom.
​
This was a lovely little fete which we enjoyed doing before some of us went on to have a lunch in The Village Inn and before heading to The Railway to watch a band called Buttonsville. This was a good day out!

We danced at The Angel Inn for the very first time last night, having been lured there by the Landlord with the promise of free ale & chips! We could hardly say ‘No’!

The Angel is an old historic pub situated at the start of Bannau Brycheiniog/Brecon Beacons National Park’s famed ‘Waterfall Country’ where the Afon Nedd Fechan joins the river Neath. The nearby waterfalls are spectacular and justly popular with locals & tourists with many of them sat around outside the pub enjoying the ale, food and the evening sunshine after the exertions of their visits.

The pub was keen to give us our free pint and we were willing to accept it, so it was no surprise that the side had already started dancing British Grenadiers when some of us returned from the bar clutching in hand, foaming pints of Evan Evans’ Warrior Ale!

Some of us had brought along family members to watch but Louis Atkinson top trumped everyone by bringing his Mum & Dad from their home in France near to Basle! Sadly, Louis will be leaving us following his graduation ceremony at Swansea Uni, but he promises to look us up whenever he returns to Wales. You’ll be missed Louis!

Our first set included British Grenadiers, Sheriff’s Ride, Banks of the Lea, Valentines (with Nigel calling Rounds instead of back to back, but it did not matter as everyone danced what was called) and Curly Boar. At one point we had five musicians playing the tunes for us to dance to. A short hydration break enabled us to chat to several of the audience who were keen to know more about us.

Our second set saw us start with Postman’s Knock, followed by Riggs of Doom which Paul momentarily confused with Step & Fetch Her during the first chorus! Ring of Bells and Y Gaseg Eira enabled eight dancers to perform before we did Greensleeves and finishing with Bonnie Green Garters which saw Louis’ mum joining us.
So, a great evening was had by us all, and we shall hopefully return next year to this marvellous pub.

​
We had a fantastic evening, dancing in the sunshine at The Old Moathouse, Cydweli, with our good friends Carreg Las Morris. The Moathouse is snuggled in at the base of the huge castle walls, which were erected by Norman Marcher Lords a long time ago. We discovered that The Moathouse served a very acceptable Otley Ale, from Pontypridd which proved essential for necessary hydration on such a hot evening!

Carreg Las perform dances of their own, done in the Welsh Border style and completely different to our dances which are mainly based upon the Cotswold style, and with a few Welsh Morris dances and ones of our own invention. Border Morris is mainly stick whilst ours use stick and also hankies. Sweyn’s Ey followed Carreg Las’ lead and started with a brisk British Grenadiers, and followed that with Banbury Bill and then Vandalls of Hammerwich with Carreg Las dancing in between our dances.

We took a lead from the football World Cup and called for a hydration break after half an hour. There had been no fouls or yellow cards issued to either side up to this point and no one rolled on the floor in feigned agonies!

Our second half started with Curly Boar where we took a high risk strategy of fielding two sides up to dance it! We followed with Valentines, Banks of the Lea, Y Caseg Eira, and Postman’s Knock before doing a massed display of Bonnie Green Garters with Carreg Las which brought a highly enjoyable evening to an end, although there were a few group photos taken by the castle ramparts in the setting sun.
​
So glad we drove out to meet up with Carreg Las at this great atmospheric venue, and hopefully we will turn it into an annual event.
Photos by Paul.